This is why your diet will fail.
Do you struggle with eating well consistently?
Are you confused with all of the conflicting information about food and diets?
It’s ok if you are. That confusion is done by design. You see, food is an industry.
It is “an industry that includes skilled photographers and designers, food stylists, product developers, celebrity chefs, social media, and reality TV as well as thousands of websites and amateur food bloggers.”
The way food is marketed is not done by accident (more on that in a bit).
If you have any chance of shifting through the nonsense, you have to spend more time on HOW and WHY you eat instead of just WHAT you eat.
Eating patterns are influenced by many factors, including:
Gut/brain cues (e.g., low blood sugar, growling stomach)
Learned behaviors (e.g., it’s lunchtime at noon)
Thoughts (e.g., I’m on a low carb diet; I haven’t eaten for 3 hours)
Habits (e.g., cookies every night before bed)
Social context (e.g., it’s a party with food, so I’ll eat)
Food availability (e.g., I’m out of vegetables, so I won’t eat them)
External/environmental cues (e.g., images of food, cooking shows, food blogs)
What should you take from this? Nutrition is complicated and if you are not paying attention to the HOW and WHY you will allow yourself to mindlessly consume foods that you don’t really need or want.
SUGAR, SALT, AND CRUNCH
This almost sounds like a boy band from the 90’s doesn’t it?
Many of the snack and treat-type foods that you see at gas stations, grocery stores and near almost every register in any store are foods that are highly palatable.
Highly palatable foods are specifically constructed — yes, constructed — to appeal to all our inherent preferences.
Highly palatable foods are also meant to be consumed quickly. Couple of bites and down the hatch. This is how the entire contents of the bag or a sleeve of cookies can disappear so easily.
They are designed to disappear quickly. So, they are easy to over-consume which means hundreds of extra calories your body doesn’t need.
Now, if this is done occasionally, this is no big deal. If it is done too often, your weight loss goals will be ever elusive.
Highly palatable foods also look good to us. Whether it’s a juicy burger, a shiny jellybean or a frosty beverage on a hot day. Attractive food images can make us want highly palatable food more.
We don’t usually overeat low-palatability foods such as beans, meats, vegetables, and whole grains. And few people would really call lentils or a hunk of chicken sexy.
Eating too many of these foods is not typically going to be the reason you do not reach your goals.
But when low-palatability foods are processed or otherwise altered to become vehicles for sugar, oil, and salt, suddenly they become a whole lot more palatable. It’s the difference between a plain baked potato and a bowl of potato chips.
What You See Is What You Want
Ever notice all that candy by the checkouts in most stores? It’s strategically placed.
Your willpower is low after a trip through the grocery store, especially if you shop while hungry. This is never a good strategy.
You see the product. It’s shiny and looks good. BAM! You’re hooked. You make the purchase.
If you never saw the product, you likely wouldn’t have looked for it and bought it. Kinda gets your philosophical juices flowing, doesn’t it?
When we’re dieting and/or restricting food we tend to be more sensitive to food images. And if our blood sugar levels are low (like, if we’re shopping when we’re hungry), images of food can send us right over the edge – and into an impulsive purchase.
Why? Because food advertising works. And it works well.
There’s a reason the Institute of Medicine (IOM) is quoted as saying, “Advertising works.” The more a company spends on advertising a certain food, the more the company sells of that food.
Advertising is crafted so you are drawn towards those highly palatable foods they have spent all that money on.
Thus when exposed to appealing food images, you don’t just want to eat more in general. You want to eat more of particular foods — foods that are typically unhealthier when you eat too much of them.
Food/Eating Restrictions Make You More Sensitive
Restricted eating or dieting makes you more sensitive to visual food cues.
Those who put particular foods off limits tend to be more sensitive to external cues for those foods. The desire for the forbidden food grows.
This might explain the saying, “There’s a binge for every diet”. And it seems to occur independent of body size.
Imagination Makes You More Sensitive
If you see an image of food but don’t actually imagine eating it, or the taste of it, the brain doesn’t light up in the same way.
So, seeing a picture of a palatable food when your brain is focused elsewhere won’t inspire you as much.
This is why it is so important to spend time focusing on HOW and WHY you eat not just WHAT you can or cannot have.
This is another reason why restrictive diets and meal plans tend to fail most people.
Dieters Become Disinhibited And Can Overeat
Oh dear. This sounds bad.
Non-dieters, who eat in an unrestrained and normal way, tend to regulate their food intake pretty easily according to internal cues of hunger and fullness, as long as they select minimally processed foods.
For instance, after a big meal, they’ll unconsciously choose a smaller or less energy-dense meal. A day of indulgence will lead to a day of relatively lighter eating.
Dieters, however, react in the opposite way. When dieters overeat, they don’t respond by slowing down or stopping. Instead, they tend to eat more.
Ditch The Diets For Good
If you are tired of being misled with the latest and greatest diet, gimmick, or fad then it is time for something different.
EBM’s Nutrition Program helps you get a handle on your nutrition by modifying habits and behaviors instead of restriction and willpower.
You work on HOW and WHY you eat not just WHAT to eat.
As you have read, this is important.
Nutrition is complex. You cannot rely on winging it. And you cannot do it mindlessly with any level of consistency.
If you are looking for a better way to nutrition, EBM’s Nutrition Program is just what you need. It is like the anti-diet.
Click below to learn more.
Until next time,
Dr. Tom
References
Tucker T. The Great Starvation Experiment. University of Minnesota Press. 2008.
Uher R, et al. Cerebral processing of food-related stimuli: effects of fasting and gender. Behav Brain Res 2006;169:111-119.
Jiang T, et al. Pleasure for visual and olfactory stimuli evoking energy-dense foods is decreased in anorexia nervosa. Psychiatry Res 2010;180:42-47.
Lowe MR & Levine AS. Eating motives and the controversy over dieting: eating less than needed versus less than wanted. Obes Res 2005;13:797-806.
Mela DJ. Determinants of food choice: relationships with obesity and weight control. Obes Res 2001;9 Suppl 4:249S-255S.
Lobstein T & Dibb S. Evidence of a possible link between obesogenic food advertising and child overweight. Obes Rev 2005;6:203-208.
Mills SD, Tanner LM, Adams J. Systematic literature review of the effects of food and drink advertising on food and drink-related behavior, attitudes and beliefs in adult populations. Obes Rev 2013 Jan.
Boyland EJ, et al. Persuasive techniques used in television advertisements to market foods to UK children. Appetite 2012;58:658-664.
Halford JC, et al. Effect of television advertisements for foods on food consumption in children. Appetite 2004;42:221-225.
Coon KA & Tucker KL. Television and children’s consumption patterns. A review of the literature. Minerva Pediatr 2002;54:423-436.
Candy at the cash register. October 20, 2012. Whole Health Source. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2012/10/candy-at-cash-register.html
Cohen DA & Babey SH. Candy at the cash register – a risk factor for obesity and chronic disease. NEJM 2012;367:1381-1383.
Holsen LM, et al. Food motivation circuitry hypoactivation related to hedonic and nonhedonic aspects of hunger and satiety in women with active anorexia nervosa and weight restored women with anorexia nervosa. J Psychiatry Neurosci 2012;37:322-332.
Goudriaan AE, et al. Brain activation patterns associated with cue reactivity and craving in abstinent problems gamblers, heavy smokers and healthy controls: an fMRI study. Addiction Biology 2010;15:491-503.
Lesser LI, et al. Outdoor advertising, obesity, and soda consumption: a cross-sectional study. BMC Public Health 2013;13:20-27.
Cornier M, et al. Sex-based differences in the behavioral and neuronal responses to food. Physiol Behav 2010;99:538-543.
Cornier M. Is your brain to blame for weight regain? Physiol Behav 2011;104:608-612.
Lagerros YT & Rossner S. Obesity management: what brings success? Ther Adv Gastroenterol 2013;6:77-88.
Cornier M. The effects of overfeeding and propensity to weight gain on the neuronal responses to visual food cues. Physiol Behav 2009;97:525-530.
Cornier M. Effects of overfeeding on the neuronal response to visual food cues. Am J Clin Nutr 2007;86:965-971.
Heni M, et al. Differential effect of glucose ingestion on the neural processing of food stimuli in lean and overweight adults. Human Brain Mapp 2013 Jan 10 (epub).
Martins C, Robertson MD, & Morgan LM. Effects of exercise and restrained eating behavior on appetite control. Proceeding of the Nutrition Society 2008;67:28-41.
Kullmann S, et al. Functional network connectivity underlying food processing: Disturbed salience and visual processing in overweight and obese adults. Cereb Cortex 2012 May 14 (epub).
Carnell S, et al. Neuroimaging and obesity: current knowledge and future directions. Obesity Reviews 2012;13:43-56.
Parigi AD, et al. Mapping the brain responses to hunger and satiation in humans using positron emission tomography. Ann NY Acad Sci 2002;967:389-397.
Frankort A, et al. Reward activity in satiated overweight women is decreased during unbiased viewing but increased when imagining taste: an event-related fMRI study. Int J of Obesity 2012;36:627-637.
Martens MJ, et al. Increased sensitivity to food cues in the fasted state and decreased inhibitory control in the satiated state in the overweight. Am J Clin Nutr 2013 Jan 30 (epub).
